Bifold Door Replacement

The photo above shows a bottom pivot bracket, which is what the pin on the bottom of a bifold door sits in. Both the pin on the door and the bracket have grooves. When the door is seated on the bracket, they lock in place. The row of grooves as you see in the photo, allow the door to be adjusted horizontally for the right fit.

Another component of a bifold door is the track in which it slides. The photo is a little dark, but you may be able to make out a small silver piece of hardware with a hole on the end of it.

This is what the pin on the top of the door locks into. This piece can also be adjusted horizontally by untightening a small screw and sliding it back and forth on the track. The range of adjustment preferences that the top and bottom brackets give you is pretty great. This is what makes bifold doors so cleverly designed.

In this photo, I have laid the door on a couple saw horses so I can trim the door bottom. A typical bifold door installation (and really any door installation) usually calls for trimming one side or the other. It’s rare when replacing a door that it fits perfectly without you having to shave it down a bit.

If you have trouble finding a replacement door with the same size, what matters most is the door width. If you find one with the same width but the height is longer, that is ok. Here’s an explanation.

The door is made up of stiles and rails. The stiles run vertically (there are four of them) and the rails run horizontally between the stiles (there are eight rails). The stiles are about 1″ wide, as you can see and the rails are about 3-5″ tall. The thickest rails are at the bottom.

Because the pins sit in the stiles of the door, you don’t have much you can trim off on either side of the door. You have about 1/2″ on either side of the door before you reach the hole that the pin sits in and you want as much meat of the door so the pin doesn’t split the wood.

Now, that explains why you need to get the same size width. But you may be wondering why can I get a taller height? Well, because the rail is taller at the bottom, this gives you a lot more you can trim off.

With that said, you’ll have to redrill the hole for the bottom pin. Ideally, you’ll want to find the same size door, but for a specialty-sized door (like this one), the method explained above is a workaround that works!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed learning about this project.

If you have any questions about this project or if you need help with a similar project, feel free to reach out to me!